The  Historical  Outlook 

A    JOURNAL    FOR 

READERS,  STUDENTS  AND  TEACHERS  OF  HISTORY 

Continuing  The  History  Teacher  s  Magazine 

sited    in    Co-operation  with    the    National    Board    for    Historical    Service  and  under  the  Supervision  of  a 
Committee  of  the  American  Historical  Association.      Albert  E.    McKinley,   Managing  Editor 


Volume  IX. 
Number  7. 


PHILADELPHIA,  OCTOBER,  1918. 


$2.00  a  year. 
25  cents  a  copy. 


CONTENTS 

"he  French  Government,  by  Prof.  Othon  Guerlac 

"he  Deeper  Roots  of  Pan-Germanism,  by  Prof.  J.  W.  Thomp- 


son 


[aking  History  by  Popular  Education        — 

'he    Trade    Routes   of  Western   Asia,   by    Prof.  W.  L.  Wester- 


mann 


PAGE 

357 

360 
368 

37° 

373 

375 

379 
381 


ow  Southerners  Supported  the  War  for  Secession,  by  Prof.  J.  S. 
Bassett  ________ 

changing  Fortunes  of  the   Great  War,  by  Prof.  L.  M.  Larson 

"he  Duty  of  the  History  Teacher,  by  Prof.  T.  C.  Smith 

'ractical  Suggestions  for  the  History  Teacher       - 

The  Outline  Method,  by  M.  S.  Gold,  381  ;  Observation  Work  and  Practice 
Teaching,  by  A.  T.  Vollweiler,  383  ;  Teaching  the  History  of  American  Politi- 
cal Parties,  by  Prof.  E.  D.  Ross,  385;  Songs  and  History  Teaching,  by  C.  M. 
Hallock,  388. 

>ocuments  Relating  to  the  Future   of  the    British    Empire,  ar- 
ranged by  Prof.  A.  L.  Cross       ----- 

'eriodical  Literature,  by  Dr.  G.  B.  Richards,  389  ;  Reports  from  the  Historical  Field,  390; 
rhe  War  and  the  Schools,  391  ;  Book  Reviews,  edited  by  Prof.  W.  J.  Chase,  392  ;  Articles 
in  the  Teaching  of  History,  listed  by  W.  L.  Hall,  392  ;  Recent  Historical  Publications,  listed 
^y  Dr.  C.  A.  Coulomb,  395. 


401 


Published  monthly,  except  July,  August  and  September,  by  McKinley  Publishing  Co.,  Philadelphia,  Pa. 
Copyrighted,  1918,  McKinley  Publishing  Co.  Entered  as  second-class  matter,  October  26, 1909,  at  Post-office  at  Phila.,  Pa.,  under  Act  of  March  3,  1879 


354 


THE   HISTORICAL   OUTLOOK 


TWO  GREAT  HISTORIES 

FOR  THESE  TIMES 

Outlines  of  European  History 

PART  II 

By  James  Harvey  Robinson  and 
Charles  A.  Beard 

Medieval  and  Modern  Times 

By  James  Harvey'  Robinson 

New  editions  of  these  two  books  will  be  used 
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REVISED  EDITION  —  JUST  PUBLISHED 

By  Samuel  Bannister  Harding,  Ph.D. 
Professor  of  European  History 

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By  J.  SALWYN  SCHAPIRO,  Ph.D. 

Associate  Professor  of  History, 
The  College  of  the  City  of  New  York 

Under  the  Editorship  of 
JAMES    T.    SHOTWELL 

Professor  of  History,  Columhia  University 

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THE    HISTORICAL   OUTLOOK 


373 


creased  prosperity  for  the  Near  East  and  a  great  re- 
vival in  the  importance  of  its  routes. 

Out  of  this  revived  importance  and  interest  in  the 
Near  East  routes  has  come  the  Bagdad  Railway  and 
its  many  attendant  problems.  It  is  the  great  Cen- 
tral Trade  Route  of  old.  Its  modern  form,  the  rail- 
way, gives  it  a  tremendous  advantage  over  the  Medi- 
terranean sea  routes  in  so  far  as  that  trade  is  con- 
cerned which  handles  the  inland  products  of  Western 
Asia  itself.  Rail  transportation  is  much  faster  than 
that  by  sea.  Goods  sent  by  sea  from  Hamburg  to 
Aleppo  must  be  loaded  at  the  place  of  export  and  un- 
loaded at  Alexandretta,  which  is  the  present  mouth 
into  Asia  corresponding  to  the  ancient  Seleucia  (har- 
bor of  Antioch).  Then  they  must  be  packed  upon 
camels   or  loaded    into    cars,    and    sent    forward    to 


Aleppo.  The  Hamburg-Constantinople-Bagdad  Rail- 
way, with  its  rail  connections,  once  the  standard 
gauge  is  established  throughout,  will  make  it  possible 
to  load  a  car  at  Paris,  Hamburg,  Berlin  or  Petro- 
grad  and  send  it  directly  into  the  freight  depots  of 
Aleppo.  The  cost  of  transportation  will  be,  by  this 
one  consideration  alone,  greatly  reduced.  This  di- 
rect shipment  is  already  possible  from  any  of  the 
great  European  centers  to  any  place  on  the  railway 
line  in  Anatolia,  as  far  as  the  tunnels  through  the 
Taurus  mountains,  where  the  narrow  gauge  tracks 
for  the  present  necessitate  transshipment. 

It  is  in  this  historic  setting,  as  an  old  political  and 
economic  fact  revived  and  modernized,  that  the  Bag- 
dad Railway  scheme  appears  in  its  correct  perspec- 
tive.1 


How   the   Southerners   Supported   the  War  for  Secession 


BY  PROFESSOR  J.  S.  BASSETT,  SMITH  COLLEGE. 


Whatever  differences  of  opinion  may  exist  about 
the  right  or  wrong  of  secession,  there  can  be  little 
doubt  that  once  in  the  war  the  people  of  the  South 
gave  it  a  strong  and  unselfish  support.  It  was  a 
gigantic  venture  on  their  part,  and  in  order  to  carry 
it  through  to  a  successful  issue  they  threw  literally 
their  "  lives,  fortunes,  and  sacred  honor "  into  the 
struggle.  It  was  not  hard  to  see  that  it  meant  utter 
ruin,  if  the  venture  failed,  yet  they  went  forward  to 
the  test  as  gaily  and  as  unreservedly  as  if  the  issue 
had  been  of  the  utmost  certainty.  Happily  the 
things  for  which  they  fought  are  to-day  merely 
academic  principles,  as  one  may  well  see  by  reading 
the  daily  casualty  lists  in  the  papers ;  but  it  may  help 
us  somewhat  in  our  support  of  the  present  struggle  if 
we  recall  that  other  series  of  sacrifices  in  the  hot  days 
of  the  'sixties. 

From  the  Southern  point  of  view  the  war  was 
fought  to  repel  invasion.  The  gray  clad  men  risked 
their  lives  to  drive  back  the  invaders  of  their  homes. 
This  they  could  not  have  done  if  they  had  not  been 
bred  to  the  notion  that  there  was  something  peculiar 
in  the  South  which  made  it  a  section  apart  from  the 
rest  of  the  United  States.  .In  1861  the  slavery  con- 
troversy was  thirty  years  old;  the  oldest  man  of  mili- 
tary age  in  the  South  was  a  youth  when  it  began.  All 
his  ideas  had  been  formed  in  a  school  whose  doctrine 
was  that  an  attack  on  his  institutions  was  imminent. 
In  1861  he  felt  that  the  long-dreaded  day  had  arrived, 
and  it  was  now  or  never,  if  he  meant  to  save  his  home 
from  domination  by  persons  who  had  no  sympathy 
with  it.  It  was  on  this  fundamental  basis  that  his 
efforts  to  win  the  war  rested. 

I  do  not  mean  that  all  Southerners  thought  the 
South  should  go  to  war  in  1861.  Many  of  them,  al- 
though they  felt  that  they  had  grounds  for  resent- 
ment, held  that  war  was  not  the  remedy.  Also,  many 
did  not  agree  with  the  measures  taken  to  carry  on  the 
struggle  after  war  began.      President  Jefferson  Davis 


had  many  critics  in  the  South,  and  there  was  a  wide 
divergence  of  views  about  the  wisdom  of  some  of  the 
measures  adopted  by  his  government ;  but  on  the  one 
great  question  of  the  necessity  that  every  one  should 
do  his  part  in  supporting  the  struggle  there  was  no 
difference  of  judgment. 

The  most  evident  necessity,  when  hostilities  began, 
was  to  raise  an  army.  Volunteering  was  immediately 
employed  for  this  purpose,  and  it  yielded  such  good 
results  that  the  training  camps  were  so  crowded  that 
there  were  not  muskets  enough  to  equip  the  mer/who 
wished  to  use  them.  The  Peninsular  campaign  in 
Virginia  and  the  campaigns  against  Grant  in  Ten- 
nessee were  fought  by  armies  raised  on  this  principle. 
But  by  this  time  it  was  evident  that  the  struggle  was 
to  be  so  long  that  the  entire  man-power  of  the  South 
would  be  required  to  meet  the  demand.  Accordingly, 
the  Confederate  Congress  enacted  the  conscription 
act  of  April  16,  1862,  calling  into  the  service  all  men 
from  eighteen  to  thirty-five  years  of  age.  In  the  fol- 
lowing September  the  latter  age  was  raised  to  forty- 
five.  There  was  no  protest  against  the  wisdom  of 
this  law.  In  fact,  the  men  of  the  South  generally 
held  it  a  reproach  if  they  waited  to  be  conscripted, 
and  they  flocked  to  the  enlistment  stations  in  antici- 
pation of  the  operation  of  the  new  laws.  The  last 
effort  of  the  confederate  government  in  calling  out  its 
man-power  was  the  law  of  February  17,  1864,  when 
all  the  men  from  seventeen  to  eighteen  and  from 
forty-five  to  fifty  were  enrolled  in  what  was  known  as 
a  reserve  force,  to  be  used  for  home  defense.  But 
the  volunteers  in  the  regular  army  included  many  a 
boy  of  sixteen.  In  the  last  months  of  the  war  hardly 
a   Southern  community  contained  a  white  man    who 

i  For  a  sensible  discussion  of  this  and  related  questions, 
see  the  article  upon  the  "  Ottoman  Turks  and  the  Routes  of 
Oriental  Trade,"  by  A.  H.  Lybyer,  in  the  English  Historical 
Review,  XXX,  1915,  pp.  577-78,  587. 


874 


THE    HISTORICAL    OUTLOOK 


was  not  in  the  military  service  or  engaged  in  some 
form  of  industry  necessary  to  support  the  army. 

Another  test  of  sacrifice  was  in  raising  revenues. 
Three  means  were  open  to  the  confederate  authori- 
ties— taxation,  the  issue  of  bonds,  and  the  circulation 
of  treasury  notes.  Each  was  employed  to  the  limit 
of  its  possibility.  Taxation  was  peculiarly  re- 
stricted by  the  conditions  existing  in  a  very  rural 
region.  The  people,  long  accustomed  to  buying  their 
merchandise  on  credit  to  be  paid  for  in  bulk  by  hand- 
ing over  their  crops  to  the  factors  who  had  supplied 
them,  had  carried  on  their  business  on  an  unusually 
small  amount  of  money.  What  little  they  had  was 
soon  paid  into  the  treasury  to  satisfy  the  claims  of  the 
tax-collector  or  in  exchange  for  confederate  bonds. 
That  done,  direct  taxation  became  a  slender  reliance 
for  obtaining  the  large  sums  that  the  war  demanded. 
As  for  indirect  taxes,  export  and  import  duties,  from 
which  much  had  been  expected  in  the  beginning,  the 
blockade  of  the  Southern  ports  made  the  foreign  trade 
such  a  small  affair  that  these  taxes  yielded  next  to 
nothing.  If  the  South  could  have  exported  her  cot- 
ton supply  during  this  struggle,  she  could  have  bor- 
rowed freely  in  Europe,  in  which  case  the  result  of 
the  war  might  well  have  been  far  different  from  what 
it  proved  to  be. 

The  sale  of  confederate  bonds  turned  out  to  be  a 
disappointing  thing,  partly  because  the  people,  find- 
ing their  cotton  unsaleable,  had  little  money  with 
which  to  buy,  and  partly  because  the  bonds  which 
they  took  in  exchange  for  the  produce  they  sold  to 
the  government  were  forced  on  the  market  at  steadily 
falling  prices  in  order  to  obtain  the  funds  needed  for 
ordinary  purposes.  So  rapidly  did  the  bonds  depre- 
ciate that  the  government  was  forced  to  limit  bond 
sales  in  order  to  protect  its  credit. 

The  only  resource  left  was  to  issue  treasury  notes, 
or  confederate  money.  The  financiers  of  the  confed- 
eracy well  knew  what  dangers  lurked  in  such  a 
process,  but  they  could  not  help  themselves.  Issue 
after  issue  was  made  to  meet  the  necessities  of  the 
hour.  Inflation  was  the  inevitable  result.  Confed- 
erate money  became  so  cheap  that  it  was  wittily  said 
that  the  ladies  of  Richmond  carried  their  money  to 
market  in  their  baskets  and  brought  their  purchases 
home  in  their  purses.  In  the  third  year  of  the  war 
it  took  twenty  confederate  dollars  to  buy  one  dollar 
in  specie.  Long  before  this,  however,  specie  had  dis- 
appeared from  circulation.  The  government  had 
gathered  all  it  could  lay  hands  on  and  sent  it  out  of 
the  country  to  buy  needed  supplies,  specie  being  the 
only  money  it  could  use  in  such  transactions.  Some 
of  the  best  fighting  done  by  the  confederate  soldiers 
was  done  by  men  whose  only  pay  was  in  confederate 
bills  worth  so  little  that  the  men  who  received  them 
had  little  hope  of  getting  enough  for  a  month's  pay  to 
buy  a  pair  of  shoes  for  wife  or  daughter. 

The  Southerners  are  noted  for  good  nature  under 
calamity.  Under  such  burdens  as  the  war  brought 
they  manifested  the  best  of  spirits.  Mrs.  Clayton 
tells  of  one  of  her  friends  who  drew  a  thousand  dol- 


lars from  a  bank  in  Richmond  and  rode  off  blithely  to 
spend  it  all  on  an  evening's  entertainment  of  his 
friends.  It  cost  twenty-five  dollars  an  hour  to  hire 
a  carriage  to  go  to  a  reception,  and  in  equal  amount 
was  paid  for  a  brace  of  ducks.  Yet  dinners  and  re- 
ceptions were  never  so  well  attended  in  Richmond, 
nor  so  much  enjoyed.  Southerners  were  brought  up 
to  think  less  of  money  than  some  of  their  brethren 
who  lived  in  sections  where  careful  business  habits 
were  common  instincts.  They  would  face  the  situa- 
tion to  the  end  in  a  care-free  spirit,  because  it  was 
their  habit  to  face  danger  without  gloom.  Gloomi- 
ness came  at  last,  in  the  last  days  of  the  war;  but  it 
was  the  depression  arising  from  the  certainty  of  com- 
ing defeat  for  the  cause  they  loved,  not  from  the  hard- 
ships they  faced. 

None  knew  better  than  they  what  failure  would 
mean.  Financial  ruin  was  certain.  The  loss  of  the 
slaves  would  of  itself  be  a  vast  sacrifice  of  wealth. 
It  is  true  the  negroes  would  still  be  with  them  as  hired 
laborers,  and  if  the  owners  were  forced  to  pay  wages 
they  would  at  least  be  relieved  of  the  expense  of  sup- 
porting the  entire  slave  population.  What  was  lost 
in  one  way  would  be  nearly  regained  in  the  other. 
But  it  was  not  to  be  denied  that  slaves  were  wealth 
to  the  possessor.  They  furnished  the  basis  of  credit, 
and  with  that  went  the  possibility  of  doing  and  being 
all  the  things  wealth  makes  possible. 

More  than  this,  the  destruction  of  slavery  would  go 
far  toward  the  destruction  of  the  crystallization  of 
Southern  society.  Through  several  generations  a 
number  of  leading  families  had  built  up  each  com- 
munity. They  had  given  it  its  ideals,  its  initiative, 
and  its  social  standards.  They  were  the  keystone  of 
Southern  life.  They  could  not  keep  their  feet  as 
leaders  if  slavery  were  overthrown.  The  Southern 
plantation  was  the  unit  of  Southern  life.  The  worst 
catastrophe  that  defeat  brought  to  the  South  was  the 
breakdown  of  this  unit,  leaving  the  people  to  begin 
the  slow  process  of  rebuilding  other  units  on  a  new 
basis.  The  old  planter  was  to  be  thrown  into  the  dis- 
card, and  those  who  had  been  in  the  middle  or  in  the 
lower  class  were  to  be  thrown  up  into  prominence. 
Life  had  to  be  built  all  over  again.  It  was  the  con- 
sciousness of  this  impending  disorganization  that  took 
all  the  heart  out  of  the  Southern  people  of  the 
leading  class  when  they  came  at  last  to  realize  that 
their  united  efforts  were  to  end  in  failure. 

For  the  men  of  the  middle  class,  the  small  slave- 
holders and  the  farmers  who  worked  with  their  own 
hands,  the  war  was  equally  a  calamity.  It  is  true 
that  it  was  to  bring  them  opportunities  they  had  not 
had  before,  but  they  were  hardly  able  to  see  so  far 
into  the  future.  Their  immediate  concern  was  the 
loss  of  the  cause  for  which  they  had  fought.  Be- 
tween them  and  the  planters  was  no  distrust.  To- 
gether they  had  stood  before  the  war,  together  they 
stood  in  the  struggle,  and  together  they  would  stand 
in  calamity.  In  fact,  the  results  would  be  bad  enough 
for  all.  There  was  no  capital  in  the  South,  except 
the  capital  invested  in  land,  that  was  not  to  be  swept 


THE    HISTORICAL    OUTLOOK 


375 


away  by  the  ruin  that  impended.  Into  confederate 
bonds,  and  confederate  money  had  gone  every  kind  of 
saving.  People  who  were  in  debt,  and  there  were 
many  of  them  in  a  country  whose  business  was  so 
seriously  demoralized  by  war,  would  not  be  able  to 
pay.  The  thriftless  man  would  have  to  sell  to  wipe 
out  his  obligations,  the  thrifty  man  would  see  his 
mortgages  and  notes  of  hand  become  nearly  valueless 
through  the  general  depreciation  of  property  that  had 
formerly  been  considered  good  security.  Never  did 
a  community  come  nearer  to  general  bankruptcy  than 
the  South  through  the  failure  of  its  struggle  for  inde- 
pendence. 

It  is  evident  that  most  Southerners  saw  their  com- 
ing catastrophe  by  the  middle  of  summer,  1864.  Why, 
therefore,  did  they  not  give  up  the  struggle  at  that 
time?     If    thev    had  acted  on  a  mere  basis  of  self- 


interest  they  would,  probably,  have  given  up.  But 
there  was  something  else  in  the  struggle.  The  psy- 
chologist may  call  it  what  he  wills ;  the  Southerner 
called  it  honor.  For  the  sake  of  his  honor  he  would 
not  submit.  He  fought  the  dire  fight  out  to  utter  ex- 
haustion; and  to  this  day  he  has  not  been  sorry  that 
he  chose  that  course  rather  than  the  less  ideal  way  of 
saving  what  he  could  through  throwing  himself  on  the 
mercy  of  his  opponents.  In  doing  so  he  lost  much  of 
his  property,  no  doubt;  but  he  handed  down  to  his 
children  some  of  the  best  ideals  of  human  living.  He 
showed  them  how  to  give  themselves  for  their  con- 
victions. It  was  his  opportunity  to  prove  his  loyalty, 
and  he  met  it  without  flinching.  The  example  he  gave 
to  the  world  is  to-day  a  part  of  the  common  stock  of 
American  ideals,  and  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  it 
will  not  be  lost  on  the  men  of  the  present  time. 


The  Changing  Fortunes  of  the  Great  War 

BY   PROFESSOR  LAURENCE   M.   LARSON,  UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS. 


During  the  past  two  months  (July  and  August)  the 
military  situation  on  the  more  important  battle  fronts 
has  suffered  material  and  even  startling  changes.  The 
power  of  the  Central  Monarchies  reached  its  high- 
water  mark  with  the  fourth  German  offensive  of  the 
present  year's  campaign,  which  began  on  the  9th  of 
June.  Six  weeks  later  it  was  becoming  evident  that 
in  both  military  strength  and  prestige  the  Teutonic 
empires  had  entered  upon  a  period  of  serious  decline. 
The  end  of  the  war  may  yet  be  far  distant;  but  at 
this  writing  the  Allied  nations  are  looking  toward  the 
future  with  more  real  confidence  in  the  outcome  than 
at  any  other  time  since  America  entered  the  war. 

I.   The  Turn  of  the  Tide. 

This  belief  that  the  situation  has  actually  changed 
to  the  disadvantage  of  the  enemy  is  based  on  the 
progress  of  a  series  of  events,  movements,  and  under- 
takings, the  more  important  of  which  may  be  listed 
as  follows: 

1.  On  June  15,  after  long  and  elaborate  prepara- 
tion, the  Austrians  launched  their  "  hunger  offen- 
sive "  in  the  valley  of  the  Piave  Eiver.  It  is  re- 
ported that  a  million  men  were  thrown  against  the 
Italian  lines.  The  drive  made  only  slight  progress, 
however,  and  after  a  week's  fighting  it  ended  in  de- 
feat before  the  counter-thrusts  of  the  Italians  and 
their  allies. 

2.  On  July  6  the  Italians  suddenly  attacked  the 
Austrian  lines  in  Albania.  This  offensive  was  of 
minor  character,  but  it  gained  some  territory  for  the 
Italians,  and  further  served  to  emphasize  the  earlier 
defeat  of  the  Austrians  on  the  Piave. 

3.  Nine  days  later  (July  15)  the  Germans  opened 
their  fifth  great  offensive.  Their  armies  crossed  the 
Marne  on  the  first  day,  and  at  certain  points  they  ad- 
vanced their  lines  about  two  miles.  But  there  was 
no  further  progress ;  the  "  peace  offensive  "  failed. 


4.  On  the  fourth  day  of  this  drive  General  Foch 
struck  at  the  wedge  that  the  enemy  had  driven  south- 
ward between  the  Vesle  and  the  Marne.  The  attack 
was  successful,  and  since  that  date  the  Allied  com- 
mand has  retained  the  initiative.  More  than  two- 
thirds  of  the  territory  lost  to  the  Germans  since 
March  21  has  been  recovered. 

5.  During  the  past  year,  and  especially  during  the 
past  four  months,  a  vast  American  army  has  been 
landed  and  organized  on  French  soil.  At  this  writ- 
ing its  total  strength  is  well  past  1,500,000.  Ameri- 
can forces  in  constantly  growing  numbers  have  been 
employed  in  checking  all  the  five  German  offensives, 
and  have  been  used  effectively  in  the  aggressive  oper- 
ations of  the  Allied  armies  since  General  Foch  seized 
the  initiative  on  July  18. 

6.  In  August  the  Allied  governments  finally 
reached  an  agreement  in  the  matter  of  giving  assist- 
ance to  the  anti-German  elements  in  Russia.  Brit- 
ish, Japanese,  and  American  troops  have  been  landed 
or  have  appeared  at  five  different  points  in  the  ter- 
ritories that  once  were  Russia:  on  the  Murman  coast, 
at  Archangel,  on  the  Caspian  shore  (at  Baku),  in 
western  Turkestan,  and  at  Vladivostok. 

7.  The  neutral  governments  have  apparently  con- 
cluded that  Germany  faces  inevitable  defeat.  On 
August  22  it  was  announced  that  the  Swedish  govern- 
ment had  finally  concluded  a  commercial  agreement 
with  the  Allies,  according  to  the  terms  of  which  a 
large  part  of  the  Swedish  shipping  will  be  placed  at 
the  service  of  the  enemies  of  Germany.  In  view  of 
the  fact  that  Germany  was,  in  the  years  before  the 
war,  the  "  best  customer  "  of  the  Swedes,  this  agree- 
ment becomes  very  significant. 

8.  During  the  same  week  the  German  foreign  office 
was  considering  the  probable  effects  of  a  threat  from 
the    Spanish    government   to    seize    and   use    German 


376 


THE    HISTORICAL    OUTLOOK 


ships  interned  in  Spanish  ports,  if  the  German 
U-boats  should  continue  the  destruction  of  Spanish 
ships. 

II.  The  Lengthening  of  the  British  Battle 
Line. 

The  more  recent  undertakings  of  the  British  army 
have  again  called  the  world's  attention  to  the  initia- 
tive and  resources  of  the  British  Commonwealth.  The 
Union  Jack  now  floats  over  a  long  series  of  "  fronts  " 
from  Ypres  to  Vladivostok.  The  bulk  of  the  Eng- 
lish army  is  no  doubt  fighting  in  Flanders  and 
Picardy !  but  there  are  also  important  British  com- 
mands in  northern  Italy,  at  Saloniki,  and  at  various 
points  in  Asia.  In  Palestine  and  Mesopotamia  large 
forces,  composed  chiefly  of  native  Indian  soldiery, 
but  under  English  command,  have  made  considerable 
progress  in  wresting  those  ancient  lands  from  the 
Turk.  Recently  it  has  been  reported  that  British 
forces  have  found  their  way  from  Mesopotamia  to 
Baku  and  from  India  through  eastern  Persia  into 
Turkestan.  Of  these  advances  little  is  known,  but 
they  are  likely  to  prove  of  considerable  importance. 
The  Allied  army  that  is  working  its  way  northward 
from  Vladivostok  is  made  up  in  part  of  British  sol- 
diers. 

The  German  who  studies  the  more  distant  regions 
of  the  war  map  will  no  doubt  be  interested  to  find 
that  British  forces  have  placed  themselves  squarely 
across  most  of  the  great  commercial  routes  leading 
from  Europe  to  the  Near  East,  the  Far  East,  and 
southern  Asia. 

1.  Austria  has  long  hoped  to  come  into  possession 
of  Saloniki,  the  most  important  port  on  the  Aegean 
Sea ;  but  the  Saloniki  front,  in  which  England  shares, 
prevents  the  Hapsburgs  from  realizing  this  ambi- 
tion. 

2.  The  Bagdad  Railway,  with  its  Syrian  branch, 
which  was  to  carry  German  power  to  the  Suez  Canal 
and  the  Persian  Gulf,  and  divert  a  large  part  of  the 
Asiatic  trade  to  Prussian  ports,  has  lost  its  value  to 
the  commercial  barons  of  Germany  since  the  fall  of 
Bagdad  and  Jerusalem. 

3.  The  more  recent  German  dretm  of  commercial 
expansion  through  Russia  and  Ukraine  along  the  Si- 
berian Railway  and  the  routes  farther  south  is  likely 
to  remain  a  dream  only.  Two  railway  lines  running 
from  the  shores  of  the  Black  Sea  and  the  Sea  of  Azov 
to  the  Caspian  lands  converge  at  Baku;  it  was  doubt- 
less the  fact  that  Baku  is  an  important  point  on  one 
of  the  great  routes  to  the  Orient,  rather  than  the 
wealth  of  the  neighboring  oil  fields,  that  determined 
the  British  authorities  to  send  an  expedition  into  this 
region.  Just  across  the  Caspian  from  Baku  another 
railway  line  continues  the  eastward  course  along  the 
Persian  frontier  and  past  the  historic  cities  of  Bok- 
hara and  Samarcand,  almost  to  the  Chinese  frontier. 
The  British  expedition  into  Turkestan  has  doubtless 
been  sent  to  seize  and  hold  some  important  point  on 
this  line.  The  Union  Jack  is  also  in  evidence  at  the 
Pacific  terminal  of  the  Siberian  Railway. 


The    Allies,  with    the    English    among    them,  have 
also  landed  troops  _on  the  Arctic  coast  of  Russia,  and 
are  in  control  of  the  two  most  important  ports  in  that  i 
region:  Archangel  and  Alexandrovsk  f Catherine  Har- 
bor).     From   these   ports    railways   run   into   the   in-i 
terior   of   Russia — from   Alexandrovsk   to    PetrogradJ 
and  from  Archangel  to    Moscow.      In    the    event    ofl 
military   operations   in   northern    Russia   the   occupa-j 
tion  of  these  points  is  a  matter  of  great  importance.) 
Serious  operations  are,  however,  not  likely  to  be  un-J 
dertaken  by  either  side  for  some  months  to  come,  al 
the  winter  season  on  the  shores  of  the  White  Sea  isi 
long  and  severe. 

III.   The  Czechs  and  Slovaks  in  Siberia. 

The  most  promising  development  in  Russia  during 
the  past  summer  has  been  the  singular  and  wholly 
unexpected  activity  of  the  Czecho-Slovak  prisoners! 
of  war  in  the  territories  east  of  the  Volga  River.  The 
Czechs  are  the  Slavic  inhabitants  of  Bohemia  and 
Moravia.  The  Slovaks  are  a  kindred  people  living 
east  of  the  Moravians  in  northern  Hungary.  The 
languages  spoken  in  these  three  areas  are  closely  re-1 
lated,  and  the  Czecho-Slovak  people  may  be  regarded 
as  forming  a  distinct  nationality. 

For  some  time  there  has  been  a  strong  nationalis-j 
tic  and  anti-German  movement  in  Bohemia ;  and 
among  the  Slovaks  there  has  been  much  dissatisfac-j 
tion  with  their  subjection  to  Hungary.  In  the  preseni 
war  the  Slavic  subjects  of  the  Austrian  emperor  havd 
not  been  ardent  supporters  of  the  imperial  cause.  Iij 
various  ways  the  Czechs  and  Slovaks  have  founc 
their  way  into  the  armies  of  the  Allies ;  both  in  Italjj 
and  on  the  western  front  their  regiments  have  eni 
gaged  the  German  enemy. 

But  it  is  in  Siberia  that  these  peoples  have  found 
their  great  military  opportunity.  During  the  lasl 
year  of  Russian  participation  in  the  war  Czechs  and 
Slovaks  in  large  numbers  entered  the  Russian  line! 
as  prisoners  of  war  or  deserters.  When  the  Bolshej 
vik  leaders  seized  the  government  and  made  "  peace  j 
with  the  enemy,  these  Austrian  Slavs  found  them! 
selves  in  a  difficult  position.  To  return  to  Bohemi| 
or  Hungary  was  neither  wholly  safe  nor  to  their  li 
ing;  accordingly  the}'  applied  to  the  Bolshevik  rulerl 
for  permission  to  leave  Russia,  their  purpose  beinf 
to  join  the  Allies  in  France.  Permission  was  finalll 
secured,  and  about  100,000  men  with  considerably 
equipment  set  out  on  the  long  journey  to  Vladivol 
stok,  where  they  hoped  to  find  shipping  to  some  Eng| 
lish  or  French  port. 

The  Germans  learned  what  these  Slavs  were  plar 
ning,  and  naturally  interposed  objections.  Troubll 
soon  broke  out  between  the  Bolsheviki  and  these  tray 
eling  Bohemians,  most  of  whom  were  still  in  soutli 
eastern  Russia  and  western  Siberia.  The  disagred 
ment  led  to  hostilities  and  the  Czecho-Slovaks  founl 
it  necessary  to  seize  large  sections  of  the  Siberiaj 
Railway. 

There  were  at  the  time  several  centers  of  opposi 
tion  to  the  Bolsheviki  in  Siberia.     A  counter-revok 


